November, 2011

    The front lawn was nearly a foot tall, swallowing the first step of the porch. The hedges were no longer the symmetrical cubes that Todd's father kept them in, but had grown to be large and unrecognizable masses of leaves with spindly, projecting branches that snagged on passerbys. The flag on the mailbox had fallen off about a month ago and was now lost somewhere in the vast sea of green. The small, two-bedroom house could have really used a new coat of white, but the old sawdust in the attic had invaded the paint cans and the brushes were as stiff as boards.

    Most people would think the house was abandoned until they saw Todd's red pickup pull into the pitted driveway. The old Ford's transmission was going out and the windshield was cracked down the middle, but it belonged to his father and he could never part with anything of such sentimental value. Even as he fought to put the truck in park, he still could not fathom the thought of changing any of its original parts. The same parts Todd watched his father repair time and time again while he sat on the ground with the toolbox in his lap and asked his father what every tool was and what it was used for. His father would smile, pat him on the head, and explain each one of their functions until the depths of the toolbox were empty, the moon rose from the ashes of the sun, and Todd's mother hung out of the front door with her long ponytail streaming in the early evening breeze as she called her boys to dinner. Most of the days of Todd's childhood passed in that same repetition, until he stood taller than both of his parents and handed his father the next tool before it was even asked for. That was how Todd became a mechanic.

    Todd dragged himself into the dented front door with arthritic hinges and slammed it shut behind himself.

    The inside of the house was in no better state than the out. The white carpets — of which Todd always complained about who in their right mind would ever install white carpeting —  were stained beyond repair from every time a mug of steaming coffee or a plate of whatever dinner was cooked that night had been thrown. The gray paint of the walls was chipped and scratched from that very same dishware. The trashcan was overflowing again, and the broken garbage disposal gave off a horrendous odor.

    Todd didn't seem to notice any of it. He pulled a six-pack of beer out of the grease-stained refrigerator, and fell into the kitchen chair where his father sat every morning to read the newspaper. Whenever he sat there, he thought back to the seventh of August. The day his father had the heart attack. No, not one of the minor ones he had every once in awhile. The heart attack. The one that stole his last beat. It was already to much to handle that his mother succumbed to the breast cancer that plagued the women of their family back in March, but to lose his father was what killed Todd. Not literally; Todd was still there, breathing and existing. It was every facet of his personality and who he was that died. He was no longer the same kid that Ever admired for being so full of life. After the funeral, Todd wasn't alive anymore. He just existed.

    A door slammed and keys rattled from outside the house. Todd tossed a glance over his shoulder to see Greenlee's little, two door car in the driveway beside his truck. He sighed, and turned his attention back to his third can of beer.

    Greenlee was what most people would associate with the term "adorable," and she really was. She was small, no taller than five feet. She never, in her whole life, weighed over a hundred pounds. Her hair was as blonde as hair ever was, and eyes as green as the Christmas lights the neighbors kept up year-round. She had freckles, too. Lots of them. When they first started dating just over three years ago, Todd would always trace the patterns the freckles made on her back. It was like connecting constellations. He loved that about her. Really, he loved everything about her. She was his high school sweetheart. She was as much of a spitfire as Ever, and as funny as Iggy, and as graceful as Doogie. But, lately, he didn't notice any of the attributes of Greenlee that he used to love. He didn't care to notice anything or anyone anymore.

    Greenlee understood why Todd became the way he was, but she couldn't deny that it broke her heart. Recently that heartache had taken the form of anger. Todd no longer did anything but go to work, came home, and drank until he passed out on the couch. His plans of going to college dissipated. He didn't take care of the house anymore. And he hadn't even touched Greenlee in almost three months. She wouldn't mind the latter as much if he took care of his other responsibilities. It was too much stress on her to work, go to college, and have to come home and clean up after Todd. Lately she was so fed up that she had begun to deliberately pick fights with Todd just to get him to show some kind of emotion. But he would just sit there as stoic as a statue until she became so frustrated that she would throw coffee mugs or whole pots of whatever dinner she had just spent an hour preparing. She never meant to hit him with things during her fits of anger, and she never did, but she figured that she had to get her frustrations out somehow, and throwing things was as good an outlet as any.

    Today was no different.

    "Todd!" Greenlee shouted as she rounded the corner into the kitchen. Her hair was flying all around her face as if every strand was as furious as she was. "I asked you to mow the lawn this morning, and it still hasn't been done! You haven't mowed it in almost a month! We are gonna get fined by the city if you don't take care of it!"

    Todd only sat there, slouched in the chair and working on his fourth beer.

    "Do you even hear me," she hollered, "or do I have to throw another coffee mug at you?!"

    The only response she received was the slurping of Todd's drinking.

    Twin tears raced down her cheeks. "I'm getting really tired of this crap, Todd. I love you, but I can't take you acting like this much longer. I know you miss your dad, but he's gone. You sitting here acting like you're dead too isn't accomplishing anything. So, please help me. I can't do all of this on my own."

    Todd's slurping became louder and louder until Greenlee's cries were lost somewhere in the open air between them.

    "TODD?!" She stomped her foot so hard that one of the kitchen cabinets swung open and a plastic bowl came tumbling out onto the checkered tile. "Fine! If you wanna be an asshole, then I can be even worse!"

    Instead of reaching for the nearest coffee mug, Greenlee snatched the keys to the Ford out of the glass bowl beside the front door.

    Todd heard the familiar clang of the old keys, and jumped to his feet with a quickness. It was the first time he had talked in weeks. He almost didn't recognize his own voice when he snarled, "What the fuck are you doing?"

    Greenlee whorled around, one hand on the door knob and the other clutching his keys with the grip of a man three times her size. "I'm taking your truck," she yelled, "because it obviously means more to you than I do!"

    What happened next was as if some celestial being that controlled every facet of their lives pressed fast forward. He had not even realized what he'd done until Greenlee was on the floor with a wide rivulet of red streaming from her nose and painting her freckles. His knuckles burned. That was when he knew that he punched her as hard as he could.

    Before that night, the most damage done was Greenlee tossing a coffee mug or a plate — of which purposefully missed their targets. Todd and Greenlee had never put hands on each other before because they both agreed long ago that they cared far too much for one another to fall into the same pattern of physical abuse that Greenlee's parents did. But as Todd stood before a writhing Greenlee whose screams he could not hear through the loud thumping of his heart, and as her eyes leaked like broken pipes and endless rapids of crimson gushed from the middle of her face, he felt nothing. No remorse. No shame. No anger. Nothing.

    And it was because of the seventh of August.

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